Paramount is really going all-in with their toy-based movies, as the studio that brought us Transformers and G.I. Joe has just acquired the rights to create a Creepy Crawlers movie. Say what?
If you recall, Creepy Crawlers was a Mattel toy line that debuted in the 1960s and consisted of ovens called Thingmakers that heated molds filled with a liquid chemical to create wiggly plastic bugs. You know, safe stuff for kids to play with. After going away in the ’70s, the brand had a successful comeback in the ’90s under ToyMax with a considerably less-dangerous incarnation. But soon it, too, fizzled out, and the brand has had several short attempted comebacks since then without achieving the heights of its previous successes. But with this new movie news, it sounds like Creepy Crawlers could soon become bigger than ever.
According to Variety, Paramount picked up the rights to make the film from Creepy Crawlers’ current owner, JAKKS Pacific, with the company’s CEO Stephen Berman serving as executive producer and Fast & Furious franchise producer Neal H. Moritz producing. No word yet on what the plot could possibly involve, but the smart money is on some sort of family-friendly horror film à la the recent Goosebumps and its upcoming sequel — both of which were also produced by Moritz. What seems like a less likely direction to go in would be an adaptation of the short-lived 1994 Creepy Crawler cartoon series which featured a kid’s Creepy Crawler oven magically creating a team of man/bug hybrid superheroes called Goop-Mandos.
With no real backstory (outside of the forgotten TV show), the screenwriters will have carte blanche to make something new and fun under the Creepy Crawlers name. And as long as it involves some sort of weird, gross bugs terrorizing kids, it seems like a pretty solid bet. Plus, if it succeeds, then maybe afterwards Paramount will treat us to a Doctor Dreadful movie. Hey, we can dream, can’t we?
